Viennese Dream

Vienna was the final stop of Part I of our Grand Tour and reminded us that there is still plenty to see – like catacombs filled with plague victims! And art, art, art, art and more art. We saw everything from Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ to Magritte’s ‘This is not a pipe’...it still amazes me to think of how many strange, beautiful, bizarre, interesting works of art are located in one city.

We stayed at a fantastic hostel that featured extensive happy hours, the most delicious granola I have ever tasted and an array of musical instruments that were skilfully played by our fellow backpackers every evening. It was there that I was privileged to participate in my favourite traveller conversation to date:

Australian Girl – “well if we go to that karaoke bar we can sing a duet”

Canadian Boy – “a Jew what?”

Girl – “a duet”

Boy – “oh, a Doo-et”

Heh heh heh.


The Christmas fair was on so we helped ourselves to a mug of steaming mulled wine and wandered the stalls.


And wandered the streets...


Being the birthplace of my favourite Austrian-New Zealand convert Friedensreich Hundertwasser (surely you kiwi's have all been to the famous public toilets in Kawakawa?), we decided to hit the trail and find a few of his designs. The building above is a fully functional power plant, and below is the Hundertwasserhaus which contains a museum with a huge collection of his art and 52 unique apartments with very little respect for the straight line. One of my favourite ideas of his is that of 'window rights', which is best explained in his own words. As any smart person does, Hundertwasser eventually moved to New Zealand to live out his final years.

The art in Vienna was varied and cool, unfortunately my clunky camera was not stealthy enough to get shots of the art inside galleries so you will have to make do with outdoor art...